NDC to submit downtown plan to city

Downtown planning  Finishing compiling the report, Newberg Downtown Coalition recommends First Street be changed to a two-way thoroughfare and that a street downtown be closed

The Downtown Transformation Project is entering the final planning stages with a report full of recommendations being submitted to the city in the next week.

Weve had the two public meetings; weve got a whole bunch of input from people, said Mike Ragsdale, Newberg Downtown Coalition executive director. Were going to prepare a quite specific report to submit to the city that will form the direction to downtown after the City Council approves it.

He added that there are a few clear standout ideas the NDC will include in its proposal to the city.

Clearly what the group decided in meetings is wanting to request First Street become a two-way (thoroughfare), Ragsdale said. Theres a strong leaning to recommend that either Howard or School be closed permanently and turned into a parklike setting between First and Hancock (streets).

There was also support for increasing focus on public art.

The Newberg Downtown Coalition will be taking the lead on forming a public art task force, he said.

With finalization of the report around the corner, the NDC will also be able to finish its application for a Transformation and Growth Management Grant from the state.

In our last request for one, the grant had to say we will be visioning. As part of the process, we were scored down a little bit because it didnt have that word done, Ragsdale said. They didnt really want to fund that. Now weve gone ahead and gotten (visioning) out of the way.

The preliminary grant application will be submitted in the next week, with a final submission due in mid-June.